To Consume and Be Consumed: “IT” (2017) & “Raw”’ (2016)

“IT” opens with the cold dusty den of Bill’s bedroom. The rain is pouring and while the town of Derry seeks refuge, there’s an ominous atmosphere right from the outset that there’s something lurking in the edges of this warm and cosy world. Julie Ducournau’s “Raw” begins on a quaint deserted country road, framing the sporadic passing traffic from a position on the side of the road where you’d imagine a speed camera to be lurking. A car comes into frame, and just as it reaches the centre, something suddenly darts into the centre of the road. The car swerves and crashes hard into a tree, killing the occupants. This was clearly no accident.

Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker - 2016) Review

Director Nate Parker and Birth of a Nation rumbles with the ache of inevitable failure. Where films like Django Unchained allow you the blaxploitation fantasies of exacting vengeance on the worst of the worst; Birth of a Nation wants to reinforce while the historically displaced and disenfranchised have hate tattooed on their very bones. Black voices telling black stories is essential.

Jackie (Pablo Larraín - 2016) Movie Review

Jackie Kennedy, the woman behind one of the greatest and most influential Presidents in the history of the United States, gets an intimate impressionist portrait. Forging the myths of “Camelot,” interrogating the morality of being a widow in the most drastic and heavily scrutinised circumstance; director Pablo Larraín and hypnotic star Natalie Portman finds ways to render gut punching alternate perspectives to well trodden history.

Arrival (Denis Villeneuve - 2016) Movie Review

Language and the ability to “articulate” our existence is one of the defining characteristics of the human species. Arrival is about the awakening and ensuing trauma discovering that we’re not alone in the universe.

Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford - 2016): The Wretched

Nocturnal Animals is a dark tragedy. Ford's motivation for the film is writ large in the opening credits. Obese, grotesque, American women gyrate in slow motion like a 'Fourth of July' themed, trailer park strip show. Like war photography, Ford wants to find the beauty in darkness.

The Shallows (2016) Movie Review: "Lively Jaws"

The Shallows (apart from an ending that nearly makes the entire film shit the bed) is a hair-raising, beautifully executed and performed thriller that likes to remind the audience why going in the water's cool, but if you swim near a Shark's food, "you done f*cked up."

Hell or High Water (2016) Movie Review: No Country For Bad Accents

Hell or High Water has had some pretty poor comparisons to No Country for Old Men in the buzz and hype for the film. That's not to deny that HOHW is a quality viewing, but rather that the world at large is not generating forces like Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh to be unleashed upon the characters. Instead writer Taylor Sheridan is tackling American financial corruption head on.